Souping Can Help You Lose Weight, But You Have To Be Careful and Committed (2024)

KERA | By Sam Baker

PublishedMarch 19, 2018 at 8:20 AM CDT

Souping, similar to juicing, has been popular in recent years as way to detox the body and to lose weight, but eating only soup for days at a time can cause problems, if you’re not careful.

The diet calls for having soup three to five meals a day and adding vegetables to help cleanse and detox your system. The weight loss occurs by cutting calories from fat and likely from carbohydrates.

As part of a healthy meal plan, soup is fine, says Sharon Cox, a registered dietitian with Parkland Hospital System, but meeting your nutritional needs with soup for all of your meals would present a challenge.

“[Souping is] trying to help us eat more healthy foods in a way,” Cox says. “But you would still need to get in the right amount of protein. You would still needs carbs included and healthy fats.”

Interview Highlights

What to consider when souping:There are problems with pesticides in vegetables, so you'd need to buy some vegetables that would be organic. You would want to get chicken and meat from cows that grow and live in the pastures or on ground; not in the factories because you’d get a lot of antibiotics and other additives. You also have to consider your cooking utensils. You don’t want to cook all those soups in aluminum pans or some poor-quality pot because of chemicals being released into your food over time.

Consuming too much water: For those people that may have kidney problems, heart failure and other problems where fluid should be restricted, souping could be a problem. But the amount of fluid or water you’re taking with the soup should be about average. Maybe six-to-eight ounces per bowl of soup, you would be OK. If you’re not urinating most of what you’re taking in, you should cut back.

Behavioral changes needed to lose weight:If you could say 100 percent that you be able to sustain or continue to eat soup for the rest of your life to maintain a healthy weight loss, then you may be a person who could commit to souping. But it doesn’t really change our behavior because we still need to eat, we need the three meals, we need to know our serving sizes, how to prepare the food, and we need to enjoy and eat our food with the thought that it’s good nourishment for our body more than just to feel full.

Resources

Interview responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Souping Can Help You Lose Weight, But You Have To Be Careful and Committed (2024)

FAQs

Souping Can Help You Lose Weight, But You Have To Be Careful and Committed? ›

Souping Can Help You Lose Weight, But You Have To Be Careful and Committed. Souping, similar to juicing, has been popular in recent years as way to detox the body and to lose weight, but eating only soup for days at a time can cause problems, if you're not careful.

Does souping really help you lose weight? ›

May induce weight loss: Though evidence for soup-based diets is lacking, some research has found that eating soup as part of a regular diet may have some health benefits, including weight loss. In a 2011 study, soup intake was associated with lower body mass index (BMI) and smaller waist circumference.

What does souping do to your body? ›

Similar to juicing, souping can be used to increase your daily intake of nutrients, and even to lose weight, by replacing meals with between 4 -6 liquid meals per day. High fibre soups can be placed into your meal plan on a regular basis, either through a full-on soup cleanse or simply by replacing one meal a day.

How much weight can you lose on a 7 day soup diet? ›

The Cabbage Soup Diet is referred to as a rapid weight loss diet. Proponents' anecdotal claims include following the diet for 7 days can lead to weight loss of up to 10 pounds (4.5 kg), which they believe can jump-start a longer-term diet plan. The diet involves eating homemade cabbage soup for every meal for 1 week.

Why am I not losing weight on a soup diet? ›

Indeed, creamy soup is delectable. But unfortunately, this type of soup contains a hefty dose of fat. This means that you're more likely to gain weight than lose some if you're always choosing to eat creamy soup. These soups are mostly made with a roux—composed of equal parts of butter and all-purpose flour.

Can you lose belly fat by eating soup? ›

Please note that we would never claim that a healthy soup recipe alone would be enough for belly fat loss. Losing abdominal fat is a process that is driven by an overall shift in diet, an uptick in daily movement, reduced stress, quality sleeping habits, and essentially an all-around healthy lifestyle.

What is the soup diet plan? ›

A soup diet is generally a short-term eating plan that's designed to help individuals lose weight quickly. Instead of one official soup diet, there are several soup-based diets. While some involve only eating soup for the duration of the diet, others also include a limited list of allowable foods.

What is the one food Dr. Kellyann says to eat? ›

The bone broth diet has three components: Bone broth, intermittent fasting, and eating foods that burn fat and are low in sugars and carbohydrates.

What soups are the healthiest? ›

6 delicious and healthy soups
  • Chicken Vietnamese Pho.
  • Green spring minestrone.
  • Herb and yoghurt-based soup.
  • Lamb shank and barley soup.
  • Pumpkin soup with star croutons.
  • Lentil and vegetable soup with crusty bread.
Apr 26, 2020

What is the Dolly Parton diet? ›

You may have heard of something called the Dolly Parton Diet — which consists of eating cabbage soup (yes, cabbage soup!) as your main meals along with fruit and vegetables. It's also known as the TWA Stewardess Diet and, well, the Cabbage Soup Diet.

What burns belly fat? ›

Exercise seems to work off belly fat in particular because it reduces circulating levels of insulin —which would otherwise signal the body to hang on to fat—and causes the liver to use up fatty acids, especially those nearby visceral fat deposits, he says.

Does cabbage soup burn belly fat? ›

There is no scientific evidence to suggest that the cabbage soup diet is safe or effective for weight loss. No health authorities recommend following the diet. Proponents of the cabbage soup diet also encourage people not to exercise while following it.

Will I lose weight if I only eat soup for a week? ›

As the soup diet usually only lasts for 7-14 days, it's not recommended in the long term. The NHS also highlights how very low-calorie diets like this often lead to short term weight loss, but it's likely that you'll put some or all of the weight back on once you go back to eating normally.

Can you lose weight with eating a bowl of soup daily? ›

Regularly consuming soup has been linked to a lower body weight. However, there's insufficient research on the benefits of soup diets for weight loss. Still, due to the low calorie nature of these eating plans, you'll likely lose some weight in the short term.

Can you lose weight eating soup twice a day? ›

If you're enjoying yourself, having soup up to twice a day can be beneficial. One of Dr. Rolls' studies found that folks asked to eat two servings of soup a day as meals or snacks lost about two times more weight than those asked to eat equal-calorie servings of other foods.

How many times a day do you eat the cabbage soup diet? ›

Most variations of this diet suggest that people eat this soup two to three times a day—although some variations enable the participants to consume even more of the soup. The cabbage soup used in this diet combines ingredients like broth, nonstarchy vegetables, pepper, herbs and, of course, cabbage.

References

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